The Malaysian government is launching a preliminary investigation on imports of steel wire rods from China, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, South Korea and Turkey following after it has received a petition complaining the cheap imports have hurt domestic industry.

The petition from a domestic steel producer claimed that it has suffered from price undercutting, low production, decline in profits and negative return on investment among others.

"The petitioner further claims that imports from the alleged countries have increased in terms of absolute quantity... the government has determined that there was sufficient evidence of dumping, injury and causal link," the ministry of international trade said in a statement on Friday.

"If the final determination is affirmative, the government may impose an anti-dumping duty at the rate that would rectify the situation.

The ministry requested that interested importers, foreign producers, exporters and associations to reply a set of questionnaires prepared by the ministry by August 5 with supporting evidence.